


Reaching In The Dark

by Leeroy_in_purple



Series: Scenes from an AU I'll (probably never) write [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Aaron Minyard (mentined), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Basically, Canon-Typical Behavior, Gen, M/M, Music AU, Rock Band AU, Unfinished, band au, gratuitous use of George Ezra lyrics, it goes about as well as you'd expect, kevin day (mentioned) - Freeform, neil is on the run (what's new), no beta we die like meh, scenes from an au i'll (probably never) write, the show was supposed to be an idols/the voice kind of thing but for bands, wymack tries to recruit him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:33:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25993741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leeroy_in_purple/pseuds/Leeroy_in_purple
Summary: Neil Josten has been drifting for longer than he's been a real person. Run aground in Millport with nothing to do but serve drunks and dream of letting his voice free, he knows running is all he'll ever have. With Dingo's closing and nothing left tethering him down, Neil will have to drift on. But on his last day in Millport, a man named Wymack comes to him with the promise of something better than this: the chance to win a recording contract. The only caveat? He'll have to do it with a band. On national TV.Or, the AFTG band au I wanted to but never wrote.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Series: Scenes from an AU I'll (probably never) write [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1886596
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	Reaching In The Dark

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this au a very long time ago but then life happened, I quietly left the fandom a year and a bit ago and the world kept spinning. I still think about it from time to time though, have the ending planned out too. It was supposed to be this deeply introspective, grungy/indie/rock styled and ambitious (for me) long fic about why we find meaning in music and other people but I just don't think I'll ever finish it. Also, there were a number of really good band aus in the fandom already at the time I wrote it. It's been rotting in my wips folder for a year so I thought: maybe I should just let it go. 
> 
> This probably won't be finished but let me know what you thought anyway?
> 
> This part's playlist:  
> London Grammar – Interlude  
> The Neighbourhood – The Beach  
> Coast Modern – Hollow Life  
> Matt Maeson – Grave Digger  
> *George Ezra – Just My Skin*  
> Nothing But Thieves – Itch  
> Arc the Forest – Bones

DINGO’S was usually quiet, even on nights like this when half the population of the dying town of Millport was stumbling drunkenly home. Neil would know; he'd slept in the store-room often enough. It had become a habit of his after he’d spent four near-sleepless nights in an empty house on the edge of the small town. He suspected that Hernandez, the owner of the bar, knew but the man had never made a comment. However, for the first time in a long time, and also for the last time, the bar was half-full and hosting its last open mic night.

Hernandez couldn’t afford to keep the bar running and had decided to close it and sell the property.

Neil wasn’t particularly attached to the bar, having only worked there for the past couple of months, but now that it was closing he would once again be left untethered. He’d been drifting since Seattle and had run aground in Millport exhausted, numb and completely alone. The bus had stopped in the small town and Neil had stepped off it. He hadn’t stepped back on. It was the longest time he’d stayed anywhere since his mom had stolen away with him in the middle of one dark night when he was fifteen.

But he couldn’t stay any longer. He’d made a promise, after all. He told himself that he’d leave in the morning. He’d grab his duffle bag and his guitar case and take the first bus out of Millport, wherever it would take him.

For now, he stood behind the bar, handed out drinks to the already drunk and watched as a girl squeaked about wrecking balls on the makeshift stage. She was a whole tone flat compared to her backing track and half a beat behind. It grated on his ears.

Something must have shown on his face because across the bar from him, Hernandez laughed. “Why don’t you go up there and show them all how it’s done?”

Neil froze for half a second, before forcing himself to relax. He stared at the scuffed upright piano pushed to the corner of stage. Sometimes, when the bar was completely empty and he was the only person left to lock up, he’d touch the keys just to hear the notes float in the air. More often than not, he sat on the stool in front of it and just stared, daring himself to touch it, to play. On nights like those, when his head and his heart were too full, he didn’t dare to play. It would be all too easy to drown himself in the music and let it fill him until he couldn’t breathe. Instead, he would be lost in his own head until exhaustion finally took him and he left the stage to go curl up around his duffle bag and sleep in the store room.

Tonight was the kind of night where his fingers were itching to touch an instrument, whichever one he could get his hands on first and let himself bleed, but he wouldn’t do it in front of an audience. Once before had been enough and it had drawn too much attention. No amount of hair dye or washed out clothing could hide fact that he knew his way around a piano or a guitar. No. He would wait until Hernandez asked him to lock up and the bar was empty and silent once again. Maybe.

In the mean time he shook his head and carried on with what he was paid to do: serve drinks. The crowd began to dwindle when there were no more performers left and soon after that, the bar was empty, and Hernandez was dozing lightly on the counter of the bar. Letting the old man nap, he wiped the tables down while Janie – Hernandez’s granddaughter and the other bartender for the night – swept the floor. When Hernandez did eventually wake up and begin to clear the liquor shelves, Neil tried to help put away the rest of the bottles that were still half full but Hernandez waved him off.

“Go play something. You’ve been itching to all night.” Hernandez’s tone was gentle, but he wasn’t looking at Neil. He was staring down at the box of half full bottles and broken dreams. His hands were shaking.

Neil had no idea how the bar owner knew but he didn’t say anything as his eyes strayed longingly toward the piano. His guitar was the safer bet but it was stashed with his duffle bag in the locked store room.

Janie was dismantling parts of the sound system and tech booth where her camera and laptop were. A few years ago, Hernandez had given her permission to post videos of the open mic performances to YouTube in an effort to get more people interested in the bar. The most popular videos only had a few thousand views.

“Sing us a song, Neil,” she said when he passed by her. Her voice was quiet as she fiddled with her camera. “Give him something to remember.” Neil looked toward the old man, who was looking around the bar as if to commit every last detail to memory.

Neil fetched his guitar from the store-room.

Sometimes when he was alone and there was no one around to hear him, he’d sit on the stage with his guitar and teach himself covers of songs he’d heard other people singing or on the radio. Sometimes, when the nightmares had brought his memories too close to the surface, he’d write his own music.

When he came back, he found that Janie had placed a mic and stool for him in the centre of the stage. The lights were dimmed and she and Hernandez were sitting at the bar sharing an almost empty bottle of gin. Neil sat on the stool and kept his eyes to the floor of the stage. He didn’t want to intrude on their grief. Instead he played the first note, an E, and let it ring in the air a moment before closing his eyes and playing the intro.

[ _There's a lock on my cupboard door_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSJgBDL94WQ)

_That I can only reach once inside_

_And I often sit and wonder who designed_

_Such a perfect place for me to hide_

_‘Your music means nothing if you feel nothing, if your audience walks away having felt nothing,’_ his mother had once told him before she’d grown to resent her own music. From a young age she’d taught him to make himself bleed for his music and now? Even after she’d tried to take it away, it was all he knew how to do.

_It's just my name_

_It's just my skin_

_Holding a boulder_

_Can you swim?_

They were innocuous little things, names and bars, broken dreams and broken homes. They were small and insignificant but in the moments between the strum of his guitar and the reverberation of sound they felt too big and too important to ignore, to keep quiet. They felt too big and they were pouring themselves of Neil’s body and he couldn’t stop them. So he kept singing.

_Well I was never lonely 'till the day that I was born_

_Since that day I masquerade in a skin that I have worn_

_With at least three separate individual minds_

_When long John returns he'll give a scream and what he finds_

He could imagine his mother screaming at him, nails digging into skin, knuckles against his head. He was stupid, so _stupid_ for playing again when he’d promised her that he wouldn’t, that he would never let anyone find out who he was and where he came from. It was just Hernandez and Janie in the bar, he reasoned with the ghost of her fists. No one else would know. No one else would hear him spilling his secrets and baring his soul.

Dimly, Neil was aware that he was belting the by the time he had reached the bridge, that his fingers were unforgiving on the strings of his guitar. But he couldn’t reign his voice in, he couldn’t keep all the broken parts of himself from crumbling and leaving him feeling raw and worn out. Neil could feel his heart beating hard in his chest and his breath moving too fast though his lungs but he couldn’t stop. His memories were too close to the surface, nightmares to real to ignore.

_It's just my name_

_Oh, it's just my skin_

_Holding a boulder_

_Can you swim?_

_Oh, as we fall_

_Through the water_

_You find a piece within_

_And you know it's just your skin_

He played the last notes of the song, letting them ring in the air before he deliberately took his shaking fingers off the guitar and laid the instrument carefully on the floor.

***

It took them two and a half days.

It took two and a half days to pack up the old bar and clean it thoroughly. Neil helped Hernandez and Janie and some other people who’d worked at the bar before sell or donate some of the extra instruments and equipment, clear out the storerooms, mop the floors, pull down pictures and posters from the walls and pack away almost thirty years of history into boxes they crammed into a pick-up truck Hernandez had borrowed from a friend. Glasses and liquor that had been on display had been carefully wrapped in newspaper and packed away, pictures of old patrons stuffed into a shoe box and placed into Janie’s car for safekeeping. In two and a half days, Neil helped them pack what had been Hernandez way of life for nearly thirty years. Neil didn’t feel particularly attached to the bar but Hernandez did. Hernandez barely spoke as they cleaned the bar up for the last time and Janie kept staring at her laptop and the smaller set of speakers she had connected to it to play music from while they worked.

Hernandez insisted Neil join him and Janie for takeout dinner on the third day as a sort of thank you for his help. Neil decided he’d stay in Millport for one more night. One more night and then in the morning he would board the first bus out and Neil Josten would disappear forever. He would stay one more night in the small town that had sheltered him at his lowest and he’d shrug on a new name whenever he stopped at the next town, wherever it was.

The sound of body-shaking drums and furious guitar riffs was harsh in the air when Neil stepped back into the bar proper on the third evening. The music was blasting from the laptop and speakers Janie had set up in the corner and the woman herself was doing some approximation of head-banging and dancing as she unpacked containers of food from the diner down the street onto some boxes that would act as tables and chairs for the night. 

He hadn’t heard the song before but he recognised the band and the lead singer’s distinctive voice. They were one of Janie’s favourites and not a day went by when she didn’t play their music. Neil had sung [one of their songs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORQX4QQwmII) on the only night he’d performed in an open mic session but he didn’t like listening to their music. Their lyrics were too raw, too real. They sounded too much like himself and he hated feeling so exposed, so seen by people he’d never even met before. The band wasn’t even mainstream and hadn’t made much music. He was glad for that; otherwise they would be on every radio station like Thea Muldani was and he wouldn’t be able to escape their sound. Maybe he’d get to see them live one day if they ever got signed to a label; he’d get their music out of his system and finally be able to live without feeling like someone out there was watching and exposing all his deepest thoughts for the world to see.

Maybe.

Janie was blasting their covers of songs from one of her YouTube playlists as they ate. Surprisingly enough the not-so-quiet dinner with Hernandez and his granddaughter was bittersweet. He wasn’t sure whether he would miss them or not when he left in the morning but he knew he appreciated the way they had quietly accepted him without knowing anything about him.

“So Neil,” the old man began as Neil helped Janie clean up when they were done eating. “What are you going to do now?”

The question caught Neil off-guard. It wasn’t like Hernandez to ask questions about him. He’d given up on that kind of thing within Neil’s first week working for him. He knew he wasn’t going to get a straight answer.

“Come on, kid. You can’t keep drifting forever.”

Drifting was exactly what Neil had been planning to do. It was dangerous to stay in one place and he’d stayed in Millport long enough. As long as Neil had breath in his lungs and the ground at his feet, he would keep running. For as long as he could, as far as he could.

“I was thinking of heading west,” Neil lied. He was going to do anything but head west now that he had said the words. “Maybe see if California agrees with me.”

“Have you thought about heading to the east coast?” Janie asked pointedly, checking her phone to avoid looking at him. He wondered about that. “I hear there’s a growing underground indie scene that side. You’d like it there.”

He feigned a nonchalant shrug. “Not really.” He tried to keep his voice and face as expressionless as possible. “Never liked the east much.”

Janie frowned but her grandfather spoke instead. “That’s a shame. I think you’d do well there.”

Neil looked from one to the other for a moment. They’d shared a look and he didn’t know what it meant, but for some reason it made him feel uncomfortable. He was missing something here and it made him itch to get out of the bar a quickly as possible.

“Hmm. Maybe,” was his noncommittal reply.

Janie’s phone dinged with a message and she threw out a “Be right back,” as she ran to the main entrance of the bar and disappeared out of it.

“Think about it, kid,” Hernandez said as he stood up from the box he had used as a chair. “The east might give you what you’ve been looking for.”

Again, Neil frowned at the turn this conversation had taken. Why were Hernandez and Janie so adamant on having a say over his life when they hadn’t cared to know anything more than his name for the past few months? And why were they suddenly so insistent on him heading east? He hadn’t even realised that they knew he was a drifter. He supposed that they must have come across their fair share of those over the years but it still lifted the hairs on the back of his neck to realise that perhaps they had been watching him a little closer than he had thought. Had they guessed who he was? Or where he came from?

He was leaving Millport as soon as he left the bar. He didn’t care how. He wasn’t going to wait ‘til morning. If these people had figured anything about him, he would make sure that he was gone before anything else could happen.

“The east coast has nothing for me,” Neil eventually said, trying to shut the conversation down as quickly as possible.

“That’s a shame. I’d hate to have come all this way for nothing.”

Neil couldn’t hide the full body jerk he gave when the unfamiliar voice spoke. Standing at the entrance was a vaguely familiar large man in a pair of old jeans and a wife beater and shirt combo that was rolled up to expose the tribal flame sleeves that circled his arms. The look on his face seemed non-threatening enough but the look on his eyes was nothing but intent. He had a sheaf of papers in one hand.

“Who are you?”

“He’s a band manager. He left a message on your YouTube video and wanted a face to face–” began Hernandez.

“Bullshit. I didn’t post a video online.” Neil would never in a million years expose himself like that. The risk of being found was way too high and if the wrong people watched that video too closely? He was as good as dead.

“I did,” said Janie as she stepped back into the bar with a giddy expression on her face. “I posted the one from when you sang two weeks ago and the one from the other night. I know you didn’t want it up there but you’re so good, Neil. I _had_ to share it. Wymack contacted me to try to set up a meeting and I didn’t want to tell you until I was absolutely sure it wasn’t a hoax. He’s here and he wants you to join his band, Neil.”

“Look kid. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t desperate and the guys didn’t think you’re good enough. I have a contract ready and waiting for you. Tell me what it will take to get you to sign.”

“No.”

“No? Neil. This is a chance to make something of yourself.” That came from Hernandez.

“No. I’m fine,” he snapped at the old man. Neil then turned back to the stranger. “You can go back to wherever you came from. Sorry you came all this way for nothing.”

The stranger tried to keep his frustration off his face. “Look, Neil, I’m running out of time and I need a guitarist and vocalist like yesterday. You’re the only one those boys could agree was good enough. Their music is written for five people and since Seth left they haven’t managed to sound as good as they used to. I need someone to fill that spot and you’re the only one they want.”

It clicked all at once who this man was. He was a band manager and vocal coach for one of the countries biggest music competitions, a battle of the bands style show where small bands and unknown musicians fought for the chance to win money, a recording contract with one of the top three labels in the country of their choice and a spot to open for another world-famous musician on their world tour. Wymack was famous on the show for being able to coach and manage some of the more difficult contestants.

“David Wymack. You coached ‘Walk the Wild’ a few years back. They signed to Palmetto Records because of you.”

“You’ve watched the show.” Neil nodded silently. Wymack seemed vaguely impressed. “Then you might recognise your future bandmates, the Minyard twins.”

The Minyards were a set of twins that had been separated at birth, and had been reunited on the show. Trouble followed them in every episode Janie had made him watch and eventually they were thrown off the show when one of the twins was sent to juvie for aggravated assault. They were also the band Janie was obsessed with; whose song Neil had sung in one of the videos Janie had put up on YouTube.

Neil couldn’t be here anymore; he needed to leave. But Wymack was still talking. “They want another shot at the show and their cousin, Nicky, and Seth Gordon and Kevin joined the band last year but since Seth’s gone, they’re looking for one more. And they have a real shot at it too.” He looked intently at Neil but Neil was no longer listening.

Neil’s stomach had dropped from his body.

Wymack was blocking the entrance which meant that exit was out of the question. There was only one other exit out of the bar, a delivery door in the kitchen that lead to the alley between this building and the one next to it. His duffle bag and guitar were behind the bar. He could probably reach them but if he wanted to get out of here, he would only be able to grab one of them and then bolt into the kitchen.

Neil made his decision fast. Before anyone could react, he was behind the bar grabbing his old duffle and then he was out of there. Wymack was selling him dreams and Neil didn’t want to stick around to fall into the trap of joining something that was too good to be true.

He could hear nothing but the rushing blood in his ears and the harsh bang of the kitchen door slamming against the alley wall as he ran. Neil didn’t think anyone would be chasing him but he didn’t dare slow down until he reached the closest bus station. He was getting as far from Millport and Wymack’s contract as fast as possible.

He wasn’t being chased, he realised too late. He was ambushed. 

Out of nowhere, an acoustic guitar shot out in front of the mouth of the alleyway as he turned the corner. One moment Neil’s legs were pounding on the dirty ground and then the next he was scrambling on the pavement unable to draw a breath, pain exploding as his lungs tried to unstick themselves from his spine.

“Look coach, I caught a rabbit,” a sardonic voice said above him.

There was the sound of running feet and then, “Dammit, Minyard. You could at least try not to break him on day one.”

“Stick a band-aid on him. He’ll be good as new,” came the careless reply.

Neil’s breath came back to him all at once and threatened to choke him. He wanted so badly to stay down and catch his breath but instead he grabbed for his bag with one hand and tried to hold himself together with the other. By the time he was standing and ready to run again, he was surrounded on all sides by Wymack, Minyard, Hernandez and Janie.

“You okay, Neil?”

“I’m fine,” he said, wrenching himself from Janie’s careful hands. “Let me go.”

“He didn’t sign at the first promise of fame and fortune? You’re losing your touch, coach,” Minyard piped up.

“I was working on it.”

“Well, work faster. And you owe Aaron a new guitar, by the way. The rabbit broke this one.”

“Whose fucking fault is that, asshole?” came Neil’s snarled reply.

Minyard only gave him a blank stare.

“Give us a second, will you,” snapped Wymack. Minyard’s eye flicked towards him, and then back to Neil. With a two-fingered salute that somehow had more personality than his dead-eyed face, Minyard strolled back towards what Neil assumed to be Wymack’s rental.

“I already gave you my answer. I won’t sign with you,” Neil said once Janie and Hernandez had also migrated out of earshot. They stood against the building, not hiding their curious glances.

“You didn’t even listen to what I had to say.”

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t want any part it.”

“I recon you do because both Kevin and Andrew think you’d want this more than you want to keep running. I agree with him.”

Neil’s eyes snapped to Andrew who was leaning against the car with a cigarette in hand and completely ignoring Janie who was trying to engage him in some kind of conversation. How had such a dysfunctional screw-up read him so clearly? How had he seen through Neil without having even met him.

“Is he right?”

“No,” Neil scowled.

“I find that hard to believe.” Wymack was quiet for a moment. “Janie told me that you’re a drifter, that no one knows anything about you and that you don’t have anywhere else to go come tomorrow morning. Whether that is the case or not, I’m offering you a spot in the band and a contract for you to perform with a talented group that need a second chance just like yourself. Their spot in the show is almost guaranteed at this point because they’ll make good TV and Andrew could sing anyone off any stage without even trying. They’re good, Neil, better than they were last time. All they need is chance to prove that, without all the drama from the first time they did the show.”

Neil could tell that no matter what anyone else thought, Wymack firmly believed every single word he was saying.

“I wouldn’t work with them if I didn’t think they could make it all the way. You’ve seen the show, you know the people I work with. The Minyards are insanely talented, and I think you are too Neil. I’m not going to lie to you and say that it’ll be easy, but I think you will find it will be worth your while. You could keep drifting for however long and maybe you’ll get somewhere you like enough to settle or you could take a year and do something anyone with eyes could see you love. The boys saw something in your video that made them want you and those idiots never agree on anything. They’re also not the most accepting bunch. But I promise you that joining them will be much better floating from place to place with nothing to your name but a ratty duffle bag and music no one will listen to.”

“Know anything about that, do you?” Neil couldn’t help the derision in his voice.

“More than you would think.”

That surprised him. And it took longer than it should have for him to process it.

“Why?” Neil had to ask. “Why me? You could ask anyone. Why me?”

“You sing like you know what the music means, like you’ve got everything to lose. That’s the only person Andrew and Kevin are willing to work with.”

“I can’t…” Neil's words were weaker than he expected them to be.

“Can’t or won’t? What’s holding you back?” Wymack gives him a long assessing look and Neil gets the feeling he sees more than Neil wants him to.

“I’m not good enough to play with them,” he finally says.

“They call me coach for a reason kid. Are you ready to sign some stuff?”

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is where the idea for "You Know Me Too Well" came from, but these two are not set in the same universe. I hope you enjoyed it :)


End file.
